To enable personnel to be trained in exercises of firing mines, in handling mine equipment, and in using surface land mines generally, it is common practice to use "exercise" mines which represent the shape and the mass of real mines, while not being provided with any explosive charge.
Such mines comprise a body which is generally barrel shaped about an axis of symmetry, and which is usually in the form of a body of revolution. Such a body comprises two housings made of elastomer or like material delimiting an internal cavity which is filled with ballast of dense material.
The two housings which are symmetrical about a transverse midplane perpendicular to the axis of revolution, are held together by axially-extending steel ties passing through the housings and riveted on the outside to the two transverse faces that the housings define for the body.
The rivets at the ends of the ties are taken advantage of for securing two rings external to the transverse faces and on which resilient tabs are welded that project outwardly from the periphery of the body in radial directions that alternate from one face to the other, each sloping away from a corresponding face towards the median transverse joint plane between the two housings. The function of the resilient tabs is to position the mine regardless of the nature of the terrain.
Such dummy or exercise mines provide satisfaction for the function that they are required to perform, but they suffer from a drawback relating, mainly, to their manufacturing cost given the large number of unit parts that need to be made and assembled together to make up one mine. It turns out that thirteen different unit parts need to be assembled and this undoubtedly raises the overall manufacturing cost and increases costs relating to storage, mounting, and assembly for each mine.
The object of the invention is to remedy this drawback by proposing a novel structure enabling, in particular, the cost to be reduced by reducing the number of unit parts used in making up a mine, and also, above all, by eliminating most of the assembly operations that are necessary in the prior art.
Another object of the invention is also to improve the mechanical strength, in particular of the resilient tabs, by eliminating the dangers of corrosion which are due mainly to the way in which the resilient tabs are connected to the rings that carry them in the prior art, i.e. welding.